Bleed Plasma Blast
Blood Mage Build

Updated for Path of Exile 2 Early Access

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The Plasma Blast is a Crossbow Skill that fires a piercing laser in a long line. It deals an insane amount of base Damage, but comes with a problem of very long Attack Time. It is an ideal Skill for the Bleed Archetype, which focuses on single, yet powerful Hits to inflict a long-lasting DoT. The Bleed Damage is directly correlated to your Hit Damage. By default, an Aggravated Bleed inflicts 150% of the initial Physical Damage before Mitigation over 5 seconds, and you can greatly improve that amount with the Magnitude Effect found on the Passives and Gear. The Bleed bypasses Energy Shield, Armour, or Resistances of your target, but still can benefit from Shock. 

All Damage dealt by Bleed is called Blood Loss, which is important for other Skills. One of them is the Blood Hunt, a Melee Spear Attack. It is an excellent finisher Skill that consumes all Blood Loss accumulated on the target, and causes an explosion that deals 25% of it as unscalable Damage, allowing you to swiftly execute dangerous Bosses. 

The Blood Loss can also be used with the Bloodhound's Mark to Stun Enemies. However, we recommend using the Voltaic Mark instead to massively improve your Shock. Paired with the inherent Plasma Blast bonus to Shock effectiveness, you can nearly double the Damage taken by Bosses. 

The Plasma Blast is great against single opponents, but using it against hordes of Enemies is nearly impossible. To supplement it, we recommend another Lightning-themed Crossbow Skill, the Galvanic Shards. The reason is simple, it offers the best AoE coverage and deals a decent amount of Damage. You can also use Spear Skills such as Lightning Spear, since you will be using a Spear in your Second Weapon Set for the Blood Hunt anyway. You will also want to use the Herald of Blood, which causes enemies to explode on death. 

The Blood Mage Ascendency solves two very important nuances: it automatically Aggravates Bleed on Cursed Enemies, and allows you to inflict Bleed with Elemental Damage. Other features of this Ascendency allow you to get much more Life, delay 25% of the incoming Damage, and force Enemies to Reserve 15% of their maximum Life with a Curse. 

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1. Gameplay

Use Galvanic Shards to slay hordes of Enemies. Against Bosses, switch to Plasma Blast and use Emergency Reload to Empower your next Bolt. Ideally, you should charge up your Bolt before the Boss can attack you, and release it as soon as the Blasphemy Curse takes effect. The Voltaic Mark will improve the effect of existing Shock as well, so it can be used last. Finish with Blood Hunt once the Bleeding ends, or less than 25% of the Boss' Life remains. 

2. Build's PROS & CONS

3. Leveling tips

The Plasma Blast requires a high level to unlock, while Bleed and Critical Strikes need a lot of Passive Points to be worth it. You should start with a typical Hit-based approach. Remember to upgrade your Weapons, Rings, and Gloves very often so they always provide the highest amount of Added Damage possible for your level. You can also level up using the Essence Drain and Contagion Setup, and respec the entire Passive Tree once you reach Maps. 

4. Final Skill Tree, Ascendancy Points, and Pantheon

Final Skill Tree:

Click on the image to open the Passive Tree preview in a new window, or use the Path of Building (PoB) tool.

Ascendancy points:

Preferably in this order:

1. Sanguimancy
2. Blood Barbs
3. Whispers of the Flesh
4. Grasping Wounds
5. Crimson Power

5. Final Gems links

[DPS] Plasma Blast setup Weapon Set 2
	Plasma Blast - charge up to Crossbow to fire a devastating, piercing beam that deals an immense amount of Damage.
	Pinpoint Critical
	Bleed III
	Deep Cuts II
	Ambrosia
	Concoct II

[DPS] Galvanic Shards setup
	Galvanic Shards - fires multiple Bolts in a cone that create Chaining Beams upon hitting a Shocked Enemy. It is your main Skill against multiple Enemies.
	Rapid Attacks II
	Pinpoint Critical
	Bleed III
	Deep Cuts II
	Fork

[UTILITY] Blood Hunt setup Weapon Set 1
	Blood Hunt - consumes accumulated Blood Loss to deal 25% of it as additional, unscalable Damage once again. Use it to execute Bosses.
	Rapid Attacks III
	Rage III
	Rigwald's Ferocity

[UTILITY] Herald of Blood setup
	Herald of Blood - Bleeding Enemies explode on death, dealing Damage based on the Blood Loss.
	Poison III
	Bursting Plague
	Bleed III
	Overreach
	Life Leech III

[UTILITY] Voltaic Mark setup Weapon Set 1
	Voltaic Mark - improves the Shock on Marked Enemies and causes an explosion when the Marked Enemy dies. You can also use Bloodhound's Mark to Stun them instead.
	Prolonged Duration II
	Pinpoint Critical
	Bleed III
	Deep Cuts II
	Overreach

[UTILITY] Temporal Chains setup
	Temporal Chains - your Bleeds are automatically Aggravated against Cursed Enemies. Use this Curse to greatly slow down affected Enemies.
	Blasphemy - inflict Socketed Curse to all Enemies around you. The Curse will be weaker, but always active.
	Ritualistic Curse
	Slow Potency
	Magnified Area II

[UTILITY] Emergency Reload setup
	Emergency Reload - reloads your ammunition and Empowers your next shot to deal significantly More Damage.
	Prolonged Duration II
	Cooldown Recovery II

[UTILITY] Life Remnants setup
	Life Remnants - restores and Overflows your Life when you pick up the Remnants. This Skill is granted by your Ascendency.
	Remnant Potency I
	Harmonic Remnants II
	Precision I

6. Gear Setup

There are no mandatory Unique Items. The Maligaro's Virtuosity Gloves allows you to focus on Critical Strike Chance and pick penalties to Critical Damage Bonuses without a real downside. The rest of the gear is very typical for an Attack Build, you will need high amounts of Added Damage, Skill Gems, and Critical Strike Chance. For defense, you will mix maximum Life and Energy Shield, although adding Evasion Rating can be easily done too. You will need plenty of Attributes on your Gear, especially Intelligence for Gem and Armour Requirements. 

(Weapon) Rare Crossbow - aim for at least 10% Critical Strike Chance for a reliable DPS output, almost all scaling relies on it in this Build. You will also want plenty of Added Damage and Skill Gem Levels.

Min. requirements: +10% Critical Hit Chance +400 DPS Optional affixes: Gain #% of Damage as Extra Damage of Lightning/Cold/Fire +# to Level of all Projectile/Attack Skills % increased Elemental Damage with Attacks

(Weapon) Rare Spear - to execute Enemies with Blood Hunt, you will need any Spear. Its Damage is irrelevant for the Blood Loss explosion; you can focus on Attack Speed and Dexterity for Gem Requirements.

Optional affixes: +#% increased Attack Speed +# to Dexterity

(Amulet) Rare Amulet - the Amulet improves your Gem Levels and Critical Hit Chance, but can also provide tons of valuable defense via maximum Life, Energy Shield, and Resistances.

Min. requirements: +80 to maximum Life +3 to Level of all Projectile Skills Optional affixes: % increased maximum Energy Shield % total Elemental and Chaos Resistance  % increased Critical Hit Chance % increased Rarity of Items found +# to Attributes

(Ring) Rare Ring - the Rings should provide you with Added Damage for Attacks. The maximum Life modifier is optional here, as it competes with the Damage Prefixes.

Min. requirements: Adds 30 Elemental Damage to Attacks Optional affixes: % total Elemental and Chaos Resistance  +# to maximum Life % increased Rarity of Items found +# to Attributes

(Belt) Rare Belt - use this slot to get as many Resistances as possible, so you can fit in more Damage modifiers on your other Gear pieces. Maximum Life is also important.

Min. requirements: +100 to maximum Life +80% total Elemental Resistance Optional affixes: +# Charm slots +# to Strength

(Belt) Ingenuity - if you have very good Rings, you can use this Belt to boost their effect even more. Getting enough Resistances can be tricky.

Has (1–3) Charm Slot 20% of Flask Recovery applied Instantly (-20–20)% reduced Charm Charges gained (-10–10)% reduced Charm Charges used (20–30)% increased bonuses gained from left Equipped Ring (20–30)% increased bonuses gained from right Equipped Ring

(Helmet) Rare Helmet - here look for the usual defensive modifiers, but you should try to include the Critical Hit Chance if possible.

Min. requirements: +200 to Energy Shield +100 to maximum Life +30% increased Critical Hit Chance +40% total Elemental and Chaos Resistance  Optional affixes: % increased Rarity of Items found % increased Energy Shield Recharge Rate +# to Attributes

(Body Armour) Rare Armour - thanks to your Ascendency, any Energy Shield found here will be gained as extra Life as well. However, you will also need Energy Shield Recharge modifiers to make it useful during actual combat.

Min. requirements: +400 to Energy Shield +150 to maximum Life +40% total Elemental and Chaos Resistance  Optional affixes: % increased Energy Shield Recharge Rate % faster start of Energy Shield Recharge +# to Attributes

(Gloves) Maligaro's Virtuosity - with those Gloves, you can skip or ignore Critical Damage Bonuses and penalties, and focus on Critical Hit Chance instead.

(60–80)% increased Evasion Rating (20–30)% increased Critical Hit Chance 5% increased Attack Speed +(10–20) to Dexterity Your Critical Damage Bonus is 250%

(Boots) Rare Boots - your Boots need to provide a high amount of Movement Speed, and some of the usual defensive modifiers such as Life, Resistances, or Energy Shield.

Min. requirements: +100 to Energy Shield +100 to maximum Life +30% increased Movement Speed +40% total Elemental and Chaos Resistance Optional affixes: % increased Rarity of Items found % increased Energy Shield Recharge Rate +# to Attributes % reduced Freeze Duration on you

(Jewel) Rare Jewel - the Ailment Magnitude is a very powerful modifier for this Build. It boosts your Bleeds and Shocks at the same time. You can also boost the Bleeding inflicted with Critical Strikes. You will also need to include at least one modifier to Recover Life and Mana on Kill.

Min. requirements: 10% increased Magnitude of Ailments you inflict 15% increased Magnitude of Damaging Ailments you inflict with Critical Hits Optional affixes: % increased Critical Hit Chance Damaging Ailments deal damage #% faster Recover #% of maximum Life on Kill Recover #% of maximum Mana on Kill % increased chance to Shock

If you have any other build requests please leave that in the comments below. We are always open to suggestions and constructive feedback.

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